There is an increasing apprehension among service members that they may be asked to carry out an illegal order, amid reports Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth ordered troops to “kill everybody” in a boat strike in September.
The concerns, reflected in an uptick in calls to the Orders Project — which provides free legal advice to military personnel — come from the likes of staff officers involved in planning the strikes on supposed drug-carrying boats and those in charge of designating those on the vessels as a threat in order to carry out such attacks.
Even as a reported Justice Department classified memo from this summer preemptively argued that U.S. troops involved in the strikes would not be in legal jeopardy, service members appear far more concerned than usual that the U.S. military may be opening them up to legal harm, according to Frank Rosenblatt, president of the National Institute of Military Justice, which runs the Orders Project.
Just don’t do the bad thing. There ya go, soldiers, fixed that connumdrum for ya.
This isn’t medieval fantasy where not listening will get the evil wizard king to kill you with arcane spells beyond your comprehension. The US is still barely clinging onto the last, thin shred of civility required which makes it so that you will not need to fear for your life if you tell someone to take their warcrime and go fuck themselves with it. Hegseth is a drunkard who can’t even do a pull-up, you’ll be fine.